Protego
by Pasithea
Summary: Lucy's world is upended when she meets a mysterious old man who takes her to Hogwarts, and tells her about her strange connection to Helga Hufflepuff. PostHBP.


_Disclaimer: JK Rowling owns Harry Potter, and I'm very grateful she lets us play with the characters._

Lucy Glenn was about to drift off to sleep when a loud tap jolted her awake. She fumbled for her lamp switch and looked wildly around her bedroom, but nothing appeared to be out of place. She sighed in relief and briefly wondered if her mother's theory about candy before bedtime actually had something to it. Just as she had relaxed, she heard another tap. This time, she identified her window as the source.

"Right. Of course the creepy noises start when I'm home alone," she muttered to herself, immediately regretting the fact that she had encouraged her parents to go out that night. Annoying as they could sometimes be, she wouldn't mind someone else investigating the noise at her window. She twisted one of her long blond braids nervously, crept very slowly towards her window and peeked out. There, on the ledge outside her window, stood a large, regal-looking owl.

Lucy jumped back, surprised, then let out a short laugh. _Just a bird_, she thought in relief. She approached the window and looked out at the owl inquisitively. It stared back at her for a moment, then stretched its wings out and took off. Lucy watched the flight of the mysterious bird, entranced, until it faded into the London skyline. Only then did she glance down at the ledge again and notice a twine-wrapped package. Trepidation now completely replaced by curiosity, she opened her window and grabbed it.

The package was not heavy, and once Lucy was able to look at it under the dim light of her lamp, she noticed that her name was written in an old-fashioned scrawl on the outside. Hands trembling, she pulled off the twine and opened the parcel. She looked inside, shrieked, and dropped the box on the floor. "No," she murmured. "I must have been seeing things." She reached down and tentatively plucked the item that had caused her so much distress out of the box. Gazing at it, she whimpered softly. "No, not seeing things." The photograph she held in her hands was unlike any she had ever seen, for the people pictured were _moving_.

"Hello?" Lucy whispered at the four grinning and waving figures in the photo. "Can you hear me?" They continued smiling and waving, apparently oblivious to Lucy's question. Satisfied for the moment that they wouldn't start talking or, worse yet, leap out of the picture at her, she allowed herself to examine the photo a bit closer. The people appeared to be close to her age and they were dressed very strangely, in black robes. They were standing in front of a huge castle that Lucy surmised could not possibly be in the United Kingdom. Her father made a hobby out of studying castles, and she had never seen this one pictured in any of his books.

Frowning slightly, Lucy put the photo aside for the moment, and looked into the box. A highly polished piece of wood she felt could only be described as a wand lay inside. Glancing over at the smiling faces of the youths in the photograph, she whispered, "So if I wave this around and say abra cadabra will you stop moving?" She picked up the wand -- it was much less intimidating than the photograph -- and felt a slight tingle course over her body. Strange as it was, it didn't frighten her at all. In fact, she felt slightly more powerful. Feeling a bit silly about it, she waved the wand about, but nothing happened. She hastily put the wand down on her bed -- apparently pictures could now move but magic wands still did not exist -- and retrieved the last item from the box, a small, handwritten note. In the same scrawl as on the outside of the parcel was the name "Ollivander" and an address. The name seemed somehow familiar to her, but she couldn't place it. She quickly decided she would investigate the address the following morning. Though the idea made her nervous, Lucy knew she had to discover the reason behind this package.

After returning everything to the box and securing it her closet (she preferred the idea of a door between herself and the mysterious objects), Lucy tried to sleep. She tossed and turned for a long while. Though she had seen the owl and held the photograph, all of it seemed completely unreal. Nothing this strange had ever happened to her. She eventually fell into a fitful sleep, filled with dreams of owls and wands and invisible castles.

The following morning, a Saturday, Lucy stuffed the photo, wand, and note into her bag and went downstairs. Her parents had already eaten breakfast, so Lucy grabbed a leftover muffin and a banana. She kissed her mother and father goodbye, explaining that she had to go work on a school project, and rushed out the door. Before long, she was on the tube headed toward a section of the city she wasn't terribly familiar with, compulsively folding and unfolding the note.

Once Lucy disembarked and made her way to the surface, she was surprised to see that the sun, which had appeared to be on the verge of breaking through the cloud cover when she left home, was now even more obscured by steadily darkening clouds. She reminded herself that a sudden change in weather really had no bearing on her mission and walked down the shop-lined streets towards the address now committed to memory. She finally stopped at a narrow little shop notable only for its severely dirty windows. Gold letters over the door read "Ollivanders: Makers of Fine Clocks since 1897," and indeed, when Lucy peered through a grubby window she was able to see a small, ornamental clock sitting on a purple cushion.

A tinkling bell and the screech of a familiar owl, now perched in a large cage, announced her arrival as she stepped into the shop. Lucy looked around the room. What had to be hundreds of small clocks filled rows of dusty shelves that stretched from the floor to the ceiling.

"Merely a side business," said a soft voice behind her, and Lucy started. "My other store has -- had -- a much larger inventory."

Whirling around, Lucy came face to face with an old man who stared at her piercingly with wide silvery eyes. "Erm... hello," Lucy said shakily. "Are you Mr. Ollivander?"

He gave a short nod, never taking his eyes from her. "I've been expecting you."

A flash of annoyance running through her, Lucy opened her bag and took out the photograph and wand. "Because you sent me these things, right? I want you to tell me what's going on."

Ollivander ignored her question and the photograph, and instead turned his attention to the wand she held in her right hand. "Holly and unicorn hair, ten and a half inches. Very flexible, very powerful."

Lucy was fed up. "I'm sorry, did you say _unicorn_ hair?" she asked sharply.

Ollivander's eyes flicked back to her face. "Yes, unicorn hair," he answered simply. "A symbol of innocence. Far too appropriate in your case."

Lucy drew back at that comment. "What do you know about my innocence? Why did you send me these things?"

Ollivander sighed and shook his head. "I know you know nothing about who you truly are." He held up a hand to stop Lucy from speaking. "And I know you want a straightforward answer. I'll give it to you. Have a seat, and have patience. I know you won't believe my story at first." He motioned to a spindly little chair and after a moment's hesitation, Lucy sat down. She resolved to keep an open mind, considering everything that had happened to her so far.

Ollivander's misty eyes focused on her again. "The castle in that photograph is a school. It was founded over a thousand years ago, by two witches and two wizards, each establishing his or her own house in the school. Yes, it is a school that teaches magic," he added in response to Lucy's widening eyes. "I myself attended it many years ago. Now, these four founders poured their hearts and souls into this school, and even though they each eventually succumbed to their own mortality, they never truly left Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Helga Hufflepuff in particular was very concerned about the future of Hogwarts, so she consulted a seer in order to assure herself that students would be safe in the years to come. This seer offered her no such assurance, however. Helga had been prepared for a certain amount of tragedy -- it was unavoidable -- but not for the complete decimation of her house and nearly the entire school at the hands of a dark wizard.

"Helga was an extremely powerful witch, and a master at creating spells, so she believed that if she could somehow return to Hogwarts one day, she might be able to prevent this terrible tragedy. She created a spell -- _animus prognatus iterum_ -- that would allow her soul to return to earth, in a new body. No one had ever attempted something like this before. She shaped the spell so that the knowledge of her purpose would lay dormant until she came of age, at seventeen, since she felt it would be too much for a child to bear. She entrusted a select few with the ability to find her, a responsibility which would be passed down over the years. A responsibility that now rests on my shoulders. There were so many things that could go wrong, but Helga was determined."

Ollivander sighed deeply and continued. "Something did go wrong, but it can be remedied. Helga had never realized that another universe existed, nearly identical to her own but devoid of magic. She never expected that that was the world she would be born into." He suddenly looked smug. "Luckily for her, we Ollivanders were aware of this possibility, as our shop just so happens to stand where these two universes converge. We have a shop that sells clocks on this side, and a wand shop on the other." He picked up one of the small clocks and stared at it witheringly. "I prefer the wands, but it was no longer safe for me to remain there. And I knew it was time for me to find Helga. To find you. You are turning seventeen in four days, are you not?"

Lucy felt a wave of nausea sweep over her as Ollivander finally confirmed what she had been suspecting he would say as soon as he touched the subject of rebirth. She stood up abruptly but found her legs were too shaky to support her at the moment and collapsed back onto the chair. "I have to go," she murmured. Ollivander stared at her, and she thought she could sense pity in his silvery eyes. "I'm not... some reincarnated witch," she said, her voice pleading with the old man to tell her it was all a mistake.

"You'll know for certain in four days," was his response. He held out the wand. "This is her wand. Just like the photograph, it hasn't lost all of its power coming to this world. You felt something when you held it, didn't you?"

Lucy didn't answer.

Ollivander's voice took on a reassuring, grandfatherly tone. "It's not the end of the world," he told her. "You are a very important and powerful person, and you have a great destiny. There are not many people who can say that. Just let me show you the world you belong to. The rest will be up to you."

"You're going to take me to a parallel universe," Lucy whispered disbelievingly.

"It's simply a matter of stepping through a door," Ollivander smiled. "I know your curiosity is peaked."

Lucy took a deep breath and stood up. Either this old man had just spun a fantastic tale or he had told her the truth. If all it would take to find out was stepping through a door, she could do that. Ollivander clapped his hands. "Excellent!" He handed her the wand, scurried up to the front door and locked it, then picked up the large owl cage. "You'll have to carry him, I'm afraid," he said waving a large ring of keys. Lucy nodded and took the owl, then followed Ollivander to the back of the shop.

They stopped in front of a small door with seven heavy locks. Humming slightly, Ollivander searched through his keys and opened the locks one by one. He wrenched open the door, revealing a small space and an identical door. Ollivander set about opening the seven locks on this door and threw it open. This time, there was a room on the other side, and Lucy gasped.

"Go on, go on," Ollivander muttered. "I have to lock up here. Don't want just anybody stumbling through."

Lucy entered the room. It was nearly identical to Ollivander's shop -- of course, if he was telling the truth, this too was his shop -- except the shelves were empty. She carefully set the birdcage down and stepped slowly towards the grubby windows as Ollivander finished locking up. She was so transfixed by what could possibly be on the other side of the window that she barely heard his rueful "I've been gone so long." Peering through the window, her mouth dropped open in shock. The street outside the clock shop had boasted restaurants, a book shop, and several boutiques. The sight that greeted her now was much different. Every person who scurried by was dressed in long robes, and some were wearing pointed hats. Her eyes bugged as she read each new sign: Eeylops Owl Emporium, Quality Quidditch Supplies, a cauldron shop, an apothecary.

Ollivander appeared beside her, accompanied by the owl. "Welcome to Diagon Alley." He looked down at the wand still clenched in Lucy's hand. "Give it a wave now."

Lucy gazed curiously at the wand and did as she was told. Immediately, a shower of golden sparks issued from the tip of the wand and Lucy yelped in surprise. Beginning to buy Ollivander's tale more and more, she asked, "Can we go outside?"

Ollivander frowned. "Better not. I don't want my return known quite yet. Besides, it's more important that we get to Hogwarts."

"Well, we'd have to go outside to get there, right? Is it around here?"

Ollivander laughed. "Of course not! We're in the middle of London! Here, grab my arm and hold on very tightly. Do not let go."

Lucy hesitated, and Ollivander implored her, "Go on! You've come this far, after all."

Lucy knew he was right. She tucked the wand -- _her_ wand, apparently -- into her bag and grasped Ollivander's arm tightly with both hands. He gave her an encouraging smile and everything went black. She couldn't breathe, and she felt as though she was being pushed from every possible direction. Just as she thought she was being squeezed into a speck of nothingness, the light returned and she could breathe again. She eagerly gulped in crisp, cool air, and staggered a bit as she looked around. She and Ollivander were now standing outside of a boarded-up shop in a small village.

"This is really happening, isn't it?" she gasped. It felt as though something had finally clicked in place inside her brain. She was certain now that everything Ollivander had told her was the truth.

Ollivander nodded, then pointed down the road leading out of the village. There, at the end of the road, overlooking the village, was the most magnificent castle Lucy had ever seen.

"Hogwarts," she whispered.

_Lots and lots of set-up, I know. Bear with me, though! And my apologies to anyone who actually knows Latin, as I am quite sure I massacred it with that spell name. Thanks for reading, and please review! This is my first fan fiction and I'm curious about what y'all think._


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